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Content type: Long Read
Introduction
India’s educational system is the largest in the world, with over 250 million students, 50% of whom attend publicly administered schools.
The autonomy given by the Indian Constitution to the 28 states and 8 union territories means that the right to education is implemented quite differently in each one, respecting culture, language, and other local specificities. Educational policies are suggested at the national level by various autonomous agencies and states can implement them in…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was last updated in June 2021.
In many countries, access to social protection (such as welfare programmes or healthcare) is made conditional on producing a form of identification (“ID”). But obtaining a recognised and accurate ID is often a process riddled with discriminatory designs, bureaucracy and technical failures that prevent individuals from accessing the services they are entitled to. Even when people eventually get an ID, it might not accurately reflect who they are,…
Content type: Long Read
This article was written by Sameet Panda and Vipul Kumar.
Over the last couple of years, there has been a push towards digitising the PDS, which includes linkage with the Aadhaar (India’s biometric identification system) and maintenance of digital records at Fair Price Shops that distribute the ration, among other initiatives. Without taking into account the availability of appropriate digital infrastructure and access among beneficiaries, these initiatives have been unable to solve…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was written by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, who are policy officers at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in India. The piece was originally published on the website Economic Policy Weekly India here.
In order to bring out certain conceptual and procedural problems with health monitoring in the Indian context, this article posits health monitoring as surveillance and not merely as a “data problem.” Casting a critical feminist lens, the historicity of surveillance practices…
Content type: Long Read
Image attribution: By Legaleagle86 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.
In a long-anticipated judgment, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that India's controversial identification system Aadhaar is Constitutional. They based their conclusion on notes that there are sufficient measures in place to protect data, and that it is difficult to undertake surveillance of citizens on the basis of Aadhaar.
But there is some good in this ruling. The court has demanded that the Government introduce…